Tuesday, 19 April 2016

Our House Extension Ideas

Whether the reason is for more living space, or trying to bring more light into a property, a home extension requires a lot of planning. We have lived in our home for not even two years and have watched rear extensions pop up near by. It has got us thinking though, that whether it could be an idea to consider for ourselves, should we be living here for the long term.

Our property has a layout often seen across Victorian terraced properties across the UK; long and narrow, often with a mediocre rear bathroom extension. The main issue I have found with our house in particular is the limited supply of natural light within narrow hallways and landings, so as well as considering the additional rooms an extension would provide, I would be really happy to have more natural light flood my home and make our property far lighter and airier. Would I mind eating into our garden? Not really, as if we did extend, we would completely get rid of the bathroom and start again. It may not create that much more room to the rear of our house, but it could mean that we could have a dedicated office space with it's own personal staircase and perhaps a loft conversion. I could go crazy with my ideas, perhaps the kitchen could be extended outwards too! Anyway, these are just daydreams at the moment, but we can see the potential that our house has, but who knows where we will be living in 3 years time, so for now I can compile a mental wish-list.

Okay, okay, so it is more of a fanciful daydream but here are my main 5 points that I would ideally focus on:

1 ] So I have already talked about light, and what better way to introduce light into an attic conversion than VELUX roof windows and should Alexander or Lily move into a new bedroom featuring a new window, I'm sure they would love the VELUX Disney dream blinds such as the Cinderella design or even this Star Wars inspired VELUX blind which would only allow light to flood in during the day as it is a complete blackout blind.

2 ] Alexander and Lily could benefit from having a dedicated playroom; the blinds could feature in this room too and it could be decorated purely for them and their tastes - although they seem to change their mind nearly all of the time! Effective toy and book storage would be an absolute must, so as well as our current IKEA trofast unit moving up there, a little nook created by bookcases with a lamp and cosy rugs and beanbags could create an ideal reading corner.

3 ] A new staircase - this is more Rob's idea than my own, but if we achieved our own office it could have its own staircase leading it it so we wouldn't have to introduce additional hallways through existing bedrooms upstairs. We could have a door leading to a spiral staircase at the rear of the property potentially. I rather like this narrow space saving wooden staircase from Pinterest

It isn't a typical spiral staircase but quite geometric looking

4 ] If possible, I'd love a sun tunnel at the front of the property, because no amount of rear extension building work will alter the narrow hallway - unless this idea becomes more of a complete house renovation!

This image from the VELUX website gives you an idea of how a sun tunnel works. Pretty nifty!

5 ] And finally, in order to consider points 1- 4 above I probably ought to play the lottery!

Thanks for reading. Home improvements seems to be a never-ending job, but I can daydream about future plans of course :)